As I mentioned last week, I’m am excited to be part of the blog tour for Daniel Kirk’s latest book Jesus Have I Loved, but Paul? Drop by the blog tour website to read others’ contributions to the tour as they interact with various chapters in the book (and don’t forget to enter the contest to win a free copy of the book!). As luck would have it (or perhaps because I’m the only woman participating in the tour), I was asked to engage with Chapter 6 “Women in the Story of God.”

In my experience, the number one reason people have issues with Paul is because of the passages regarding women's roles in his letters. A few select passages seemingly calling for women to submit to men and to be silent in church are enough for many to jettison Paul from the canon. As some read Paul (or at least have had Paul imposed upon them), he seems to be denying the very humanity and dignity of women – something that Jesus never did. With such an interpretation as a given, it’s difficult for many to figure out what to do with Paul. There are of course those that use such an interpretation of Paul to demean and oppress women. Some believing that they have no right to question that interpretation accept it and yet keep Paul at a distance, like a creepy relative that they would prefer not to show up at family gatherings. Others outright reject Paul, claiming that such a patriarchal attitude nullifies any right his words have to speak into our world today. Some accept Paul, but insist that his words restricting women must have been added by some later scribe. In light of all that, it's easy to see how it's hard to love Paul.

Yet I’ve generally found all those approaches to be lacking. Having to choose between rejecting the reality of the biblical context or rejecting the Bible because of the reality of the biblical context both seemed too limiting for me.

So I appreciate the approach Kirk offers in his book. In situating Paul within the context of the larger narrative of scripture, he begins by addressing how women are treated in the text beyond the traditional “clobber-women-into-submission” passages. What he reveals is a world where patriarchy is the norm and yet women are find opportunities to serve in all areas of the church. From the scriptural evidence of what women were in truth doing in the church, Kirk argues that the controversial passages have both at times been interpreted wrongly and yet give testimony to the ambiguity present in scripture. He states, “As for Scripture, it not only sows seeds of equality whose flowers never fully bloom on its pages; it also continues to reflect and, at times, affirm the inequalities endemic to its ancient cultural context.” (118). In short, the Bible contains both stories of women leading churches, preaching and prophesying, and embracing greater dignity in the church than their culture ever bestowed upon them as well as statements supporting the gender hierarchies of the time. Kirk concludes that to argue that the Bible is either fully egalitarian or fully patriarchal is to ignore its cultural situation.

But although that cultural context might be messy and not reflect fully what we might want to find in Scripture, Kirk argues that what is most important is to remember that we are part of the ongoing narrative of God’s story. He writes that this narrative “is as dramatic and sweeping a gospel narrative as one could hope for. … Paul’s narrative of salvation is nothing less than the proclamation and embodiment here and now of the coming dominion of God” (50). So therefore, “because it is a story of cosmic transformation, the story has to be embodied and lived” (51). To proclaim the dominion of God is to live in its ways here and now – to testify to its transforming power. The gospel gives “glimpses of a new creation that has no hierarchical distinction between male and female. It is not a vision that is worked out consistently in the first-century culture in which the New Testament writings grew-up, but it is one that fits within the plot of a story that turns all social hierarchies on their head as God comes to rule the world through a crucified Messiah” (137) Instead of giving sin power by letting the patriarchy of that time keep us from living out the redemptive nature of new creation now, Kirk calls us to instead embrace Christ’s redemptive work and turn upside-down the controlling hierarchies of this world.

I greatly appreciate this take on Paul that affirms both the reality of his context and the reality of what women were doing in the early church. Placing myself within a continuing narrative witnessing to new creation makes far more sense to me than just rejecting Paul because he isn’t who I would like for him to be. I do wish though that Kirk had explored whether he thought it would have been appropriate for women to live into that narrative of New Creation in periods in history where it might have caused the surrounded cultures to be offended. Should women’s dignity, worth, and equality be affirmed because such things are true or only when affirming them would not give offense within a particular culture? I get that Paul may have imposed restrictions on women so that they wouldn’t offend the culture, but I am left wondering in this interpretation at what point one should simply embrace New Creation in spite of the culture that does not understand the light shining in the darkness?

I found myself most troubled in this chapter when immediately after arguing that we should embrace Christ’s redemptive power by affirming an egalitarian position on gender, Kirk jumped straight to the most common argument used to temper the radical assertion of equality. He is quick to say that real Christ-like egalitarianism is not therefore a call for women to seek out positions of leadership in the church as to be called to Christ is to accept the hard life of submission and servant hood. While I wouldn’t argue that following Christ does involve a servant’s heart, this is an argument that has been used over and over as simply a backhanded way of asserting patriarchy in the name of equality. I honestly don’t think Kirk intended to do so here, but I do wonder if he was unaware of how this argument has been used to give lip-service to egalitarianism while ensuring nothing really changes in the male-dominated church.

As many feminist scholars have argued, to accuse women of the sin of self-seeking pride when they attempt to use their God-given gifts leads to many women burying those gifts lest they fall into sin. They are bullied into passivity under the guise of humility. That is not what it means though to follow Christ and live into the telos of who God created us to be. Centuries though of being told that unless we submit and let men dominate us we are sinning and not being sufficiently Christ-like are difficult to overcome. The last thing women need to hear more of is that we are sinning or living in the ways of the world when we choose to accept God’s call to use the gifts God has given us.

We still live in a world marred by the oppressive ways of patriarchy. The dominion of God where there is no male or female is not yet fully realized, although we are called to live as if it is. Perhaps we still need gender specific instructions for how to live in these ways. To men, yes, counter years of living in unChrist-like ways by telling them to be servants and to not pursue positions of power in the church. But, to women, don’t reinforce the idea that they are sining by living into their gifts. Encourage them instead to reject the ways of the world by accepting their gifts and having no fear in using them to serve Christ. I don’t believe that Daniel Kirk was trying to reinforce gender hierarchies by bringing up this standard caution regarding egalitarianism, but I would be remiss to not mention what the warning can imply for women. We are still living into this narrative that affirms the breaking in of the reign of God in the here and now, and so I do greatly appreciate this book’s helpful way of realistically dealing with often unsettling texts. Even as the New Creation is yet unfolding, so it seems is our ability to figure out how to best embrace Christ’s redemption in our lives.

Although I would have liked this chapter to offer more constructive suggestions for navigating gender in the New Creation, I appreciate the ways in which it reframes the conversation regarding Paul and women. For those of us who have never felt comfortable with the options given to us for how we should handle Paul, it proposes an affirming yet realistic engagement that allows both Scripture and the transformative redemptive power of Christ to co-exist as part of the narrative of God’s people.

I’m a fan of Daniel Kirk’s writing. After meeting him at the 2009 Emergent Theological Conversation, I’ve enjoyed following him online. He is one of the few academics that Tweets about all aspects of life – from theological questions to what he’s making his family for breakfast. As a good postmodern who values authenticity, that’s something I admire. I like the questions he asks and his way of presenting possible answers. I don’t always agree with him, but I always respect how he engages in the conversation – which also sums up my reaction to his book. There are places in the book where I have quibbles (and a few outright objections), but on the whole I appreciate his overall vision that Paul is presenting a narrative theology of how the identity of the people of God gets formed which very much holds together with both the story of Israel and Jesus’ teachings.

Growing up as an evangelical, I received heavy doses of Paul (and little of Jesus), but the Paul I received was a Paul who was both quick to criticize and dismiss his Jewish roots and offer the hope of escaping this world soon by shuffling off the despised mortal flesh. But once I started paying attention to the Old Testament and the teachings of Jesus, this Paul no longer made sense. I was one of those that the book suggests needs “a healthy deconstruction of their understanding of Paul” (5). And this book does that and does it well. In rescuing Paul from his forced isolation by demonstrating how he contributes to the ongoing narrative of God working to redeem the world, it transforms the often uncomfortable dogmatic statements and rules into vital (albeit often contextual) parts of that story.

What I appreciated most was how Kirk interpreted Paul’s writings on the hope of the resurrection. He straightforwardly demonstrates that this hope has nothing to do with escape from or rejection of creation, but instead is all about living into the new creation. This hope means that the kingdom of God is now and that Jesus is reigning over it putting it in order. As Kirk writes, what this means is that “The kingdom of God is at hand in the undoing of all the sin and death and brokenness and disorder that mar the very good world of God” (39). The advice that Paul gives in his letters is not about perfecting oneself so that one day one might be worthy of heaven, but practical advice for how the community of God lives in the kingdom here and now as part of God’s work restoring creation.

I appreciate this eschatological interpretation of Paul’s narrative theology that values the present as much as it does the future. It is hard to love the world enough to desire its transformation (as Jesus and the Old Testament prophets did) if one simply desires to escape it someday. But as the book argues, Paul is presenting a vision for how people continue in the way of Jesus and live transformativly in the present. And this is possible because “new creation is not simply something that we look forward to; it is something in which we already participate. The culmination of the story is exerting a sort of backward force, such that the future, by power of the life-giving Spirit, is intruding on the present and transforming it” (47). As one who has had Paul imposed on me as apology for why I shouldn’t care about seeking justice in the world, this rescuing of Paul from his escapist captivity is refreshing. For those who have been uneasy with the Paul they were taught (who seemed to have little to do with the Jesus they love) and who respect the Bible too much to simply reject Paul’s writing, this returning of Paul to the larger narrative context of scripture is a blessing making the book well worth the read. I will be engaging specifically the books’ perspective on Paul’s writings on women next week where I will address a few of my minor concerns with the book, but I wanted to highlight here the book’s exceedingly helpful presentation of Paul in light of the rest of scripture. I encourage readers to follow the blog tour and engage in the conversation as it unfolds.

Be sure to stop by the Blog Tour Hub for a chance to win a free copy of the book!

I wish I had more time to read these days, but here's my list of books I read this past year. I'd love to hear your thoughts on these books, and any recommendations for what I should read next year.

Non-fiction

• I Am My Body by Elisabeth Moltmann-Wendel
• Journey to the Common Good by Walter Brueggemann
• On Christian Doctrine by Saint Augustine
• The Moment of Christian Witness by Hans Urs von Balthasar
• Interpreting the Postmodern Ed. by Rosemary Radford Ruether and Marion Glau
• The Power of the Word by Elizabeth Schussler Fiorenza
• The Eclipse of the Biblical Narrative by Hans Frei
• Scripture in the Tradition by Henri de Lubac
• Interpretation Theory by Paul Ricoeur
• Truth and Method by Hans-Georg Gadamer
• Unsettling Narratives by Clare Braford
• The Girl Who Was on Fire Edited by Leah Wilson
• Race: A Theological Account by J. Kameron Carter
• Jesus and Nonviolence by Walter Wink
• No Future Without Forgiveness by Desmond Tutu
• Mangoes or Bananas? by Hwa Yung
• Lies My Teacher Told Me by James W. Loewen
• Improvisation by Samuel Wells
• Christians Among the Virtues by Stanley Hauerwas and Charles Pinches
• Theology of Hope by Jurgen Moltmann
• The Humanity of God by Karl Barth
• Face of the Deep by Catherine Keller
• Speaking of Sin by Barbara Brown Taylor
• The Moral Vision of the New Testament by Richard Hays
• Paul Ricoeur's Hermeneutics of the Imagination by Jeanne Evans
• Figuring the Sacred by Paul Ricoeur
• Jesus Have I Loved, but Paul? by J.R. Daniel Kirk

Fiction

• The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
• The Girl Who Played with Fire bu Stieg Larsson
• The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest by Steig Larsson
• Troubled Waters by Sharon Shinn
• Twilight's Dawn by Anne Bishop
• Seer of Sevenwaters by Juliet Marillier
• Kushiel's Legacy Series Books 1-8 by Jacqueline Carey
• The Hunger Games Trilogy by Suzanne Collins
• Naamah's Blessing by Jacqueline Carey
• A Great And Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray
• Rebel Angels by Libba Bray
• The Sweet Far Thing by Libba Bray
• Divergent by Veronica Roth

Whether it was a brilliant marketing strategy or just a sad reflection of the charged atmosphere of Christian dialogue these days, one cannot deny that Rob Bell’s latest book Love Wins has stirred up a load of controversy before it has even hit the shelves. As a book claiming the daunting task of being “A Book about Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived,” the uproar was understandable although disappointingly cruel at times. For some reason many Christians hold to the notion that where we go when we die is the most important aspect of our faith and thus get rather up in arms when people even dare to open that topic up for conversation. Bell deftly addresses the need to re-prioritize what is central to our faith, but more on that in a moment. Let me first get the controversial stuff out of the way.

Does Bell believe in hell? Yes. Does Bell believe in heaven? Yes. Is Bell firmly rooted in Christian Orthodoxy? Yes. Does Bell think that Jesus is the way? Yes. Is Bell a universalist? If by that we mean that God is reconciling all creation to himself and that we shouldn’t assume that God will fail at this, then yes, Bell is a universalist. If that’s all you want to know so that you can judge, label, dismiss or whatever, then you can stop reading now. But if you are curious about what the book is really about and the hope-filled message of transformation it contains, then I invite you to keep reading.

At the most basic level, Love Wins is a typical Rob Bell book. Which is to say that he writes like he speaks and so what the reader encounters is an easy to read yet powerful narrative that speaks straight to the heart. Bell’s gift is to take tremendously complex theological concepts and translate them so that they are not just understandable to all but also blessedly practical. People can complain that he is too popular or over-marketed, but it is this gift that makes him resonate with so many people. At the same time, those who are versed in history and theology can clearly see the conversations of Christians through the centuries behind the ideas Bell expresses. He is not espousing anything new in this book, simply making accessible the rich tradition of Christian thought for believers today.

And what he is saying is powerful. Bell gets at the heart of what Christians believe about God and isn’t afraid to challenge the implicit assumptions about God that are at the core of some Christians’ belief systems. Central to that message is the suggestion that our relationship with the God of the universe is a dynamic and not static reality. Jesus’ work on the cross isn’t just an historical event, but an ongoing narrative of redemption and reconciliation. Our faith isn’t just about going to heaven when we die, but about entering into a relationship and partnership with God now and for eternity. Heaven and hell are real for Bell, but are not simply places we go when we die. They are connected to who we are in Christ now. We are called to accept the gift of a transformative life that can endure even death. This life is a gift from a God who truly desires life on earth to be like it is in heaven, both now and for eternity, and who lets us serve as partners in this work of reconciling a world that God loves and will never give up on.

This message that God loves his creation so much that God refuses to give up on us, forms the core of Bell’s book. Bell points out, that since the early church fathers, Christians have held that since God’s central essence is love, it is reconciliation and not eternal suffering that brings God the most glory. What we believe and how we act are vitally important, but in the end upholding and glorifying the essence of God is most important. And when we insist that people who think differently than us, or who haven’t had the same revelation as us, or who said a different prayer than us will be eternally separate from a God the scriptures say works for and longs for the redemption of all things, we are stripping God of his power and denying him glory.

At the same time, Bell doesn’t deny that love involves freedom. We are free to deny God and to refuse to live the ways of God’s kingdom. God cannot abide injustice or greed or hatred – such things have no place in the world to come and have significant consequences in the world now. Suffering exists and God cares about those in pain, yet God loves us enough to allow us to continue to live in the hell of our own choosing. Hell is real, but it is a place we create for ourselves as we reject the gift of life God offers to us. But in the scriptures judgment is always connected to restoration. God essence is love and that essence can never change. The gates of heaven never shut, for even as God will not abide injustice and sin in his realm he by nature is always desiring the reconciliation and restoration of all things. God can never stop being God which means that in the end, love has to win.

Love Wins is not a book about who is in or out. That sort of talk is too small. It is a book that invites people to remember the life God is offering them and that encourages them to thrive as they joyously participate in that life. Bell challenges theologies that seem to have forgotten what it means to live this life and moves the conversation back to a placed where Christians have the freedom to say yes to the gift God continually offers. Christianity isn’t about being right or wrong, it’s about living joyously and transformativly for Jesus – and that is a message we can all benefit from being reminded of.

There were books I had to read and those I read for research that are on the list only because I read them. Some, like those by Dobson and Grudem, were painful reads, but served as needed reminders of how much hatred towards women still exists in the church. But the point of the list is the good recommendations. Hands down, the best fiction books I read this year (and in a long time) were Suzanne Collin's The Hunger Games Trilogy. Intricately written, they explored the personal and social ramifications of bread and circuses entertainment. Violence and extravagant living always have a price and the books explore (through a fantastic story) the tale of those forced to pay that price. I highly recommend picking up the series and reading it immediately (it's written for young adults so they are quick reads).

As for non-fiction, I covered a decent amount of territory this past year. I appreciated the postcolonial works I read (especially Chung Hyun Kyung's Struggle to be the Sun Again) and want to continue to read such books in the upcoming year. My favorites from the year though would have to be Walter Brueggemann's Out of Babylon and Wes Howard-Brook's "Come Out My People!": God's Call Out of Empire and Beyond. Obviously both dealt with similar subjects – exploring the biblical texts as springboard for commentary for how the people of God should relate to living in empire today. Brueggemann's text is short and inspiring. Howard-Brook's text tackles the whole of scripture – becoming the biblical survey book I have always wanted to read. He pulls in not just biblical criticism, but theology, and history, and anthropology, and linguistics. It's a book that doesn't limit the Bible to one small lens (which always misses the forest for the trees), but attempts to read it as a holistic text that speaks truth to us today. I bought it for research purposes and ended up being unable to put it down (all 500+ pages of it). It is a great resource and an engaging read.

Non-fiction

• "Come Out My People!": God's Call out of Empire in the Bible and Beyond by Wes Howard-Brook
• Out of Babylon by Walter Brueggemann
• Postcolonial Feminist Interpretation of the Bible by Musa Dube
• Open Veins of Latin America by Eduardo Galeano
• Struggle to be the Sun Again by Chung Hyun Kyung
• Evangelical Feminism by Wayne Grudem
• Bringing Up Girls by James Dobson
• Are Women Human? by Dorothy Sayers
• Finally Feminist by John Stackhouse
• Medium Raw by Anthony Bourdain
• Fifth Avenue, 5 A.M. by Sam Wasson
• Metavista by Colin Greene and Martin Robinson
• Opting for the Margins Ed. by Joerg Rieger
• Things I've Been Silent About by Azar Nafisi
• Packaging Girlhood by Sharon Lamb
• One Church, Many Tribes by Richard Twiss
• Let Your Life Speak by Parker Palmer

Textbooks

• Early Judaism by Frederick J. Murphy
• In the Shadow of Empire ed. Richard A. Horsley
• Jesus, Humanity and the Trinity by Kathryn Tanner
• On Christian Theology by Rowan Williams
• Resurrection: The Power of God for Christians and Jews by Kevin Madigan and Jon Levenson
• Understanding the Old Testament by Anderson, Bishop, and Newman
• Holy Teaching: Introducing the Summa Theologiae by Thomas Aquinas and Bauerschmidt
• The Work of Writing by Elizabeth Rankin

Fiction

• Pegasus by Robin McKinley
• The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
• Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins
• Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins
• The Moses Expedition by Juan Gomez-Jurado
• God's Spy by Juan Gomez-Jurada
• Naamah's Curse by Jacqueline Carey
• Shalodor's Lady by Anne Bishop
• Gateway by Sharon Shinn
• Alyzon Whitestarr by Isobelle Carmody
• Heart's Blood by Juliet Marillier
• Quatrain by Sharon Shinn
• Palimpsest by Catherynne Valente
• The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown
• Obernewtyn by Isobelle Carmody
• The Farseekers by Isobelle Carmody
• Ashling by Isobelle Carmody
• The Keeping Place by Isobelle Carmody
• Wavesong by Isobelle Carmody
• The Stone Key by Isobelle Carmody

These [texts] concerning dynasty and temple, regularly reiterated in state-sponsored liturgy, gave certitude and entitlement to those most closely gathered around the center of Jerusalem power. All this certainty about God’s blessing of Jerusalem, its king and its temple, gave the people of Jerusalem an excuse to ignore the social facts on the ground. If God was indeed blessing the power structure of Jerusalem unconditionally, then they need not worry about the economic exploitation and political oppression going on around them.

I think we all too often use this idea of blessing to ignore the needs of others. Living for ourselves, demanding God’s blessing for ourselves, prevents us from opening our eyes to the needs of others. And often enjoying that blessing (politically or economically) results in the direct exploitation and oppression of others. What we see as blessing is simply ill-gotten gain – what we call blessing others live as misery. Brueggemann goes on to say how even with the empires at their backdoor many in Jerusalem lived in denial as they tried to keep up this certainty of blessing with false mantras of “shalom, shalom.” His point is that only the poetic utterances of the prophets quietly challenged those false assurances by implying that the mere saying of “shalom” does not create peace. Saying “we are blessed” while others suffer for our false sense of blessing has nothing to do with actual blessing.

The parallels to modern day America are obvious (which is where Bruegemann goes in the text). We claim God’s blessing with the certitude of a blood drenched flag backing it up and the exploited poor suffering in our wake. We’ve mistaken greed, power, and consumption for blessing. Yet, beyond this obvious comparison to America, what these words on blessing brought to my mind was how often the church acts in these ways as well.

If a church is growing – determined almost exclusively numerically these days (the counting of butts and bucks) – then they deem themselves to be at the receiving end of God’s blessing. If people are showing up and spending giving money, then they must be doing something right for God to bless them in such ways. Unfortunately the same rationale could be applied to a movie theater or football stadium. Claiming God’s blessing because people are showing up to be entertained or affirmed in their pursuit of the American Dream makes no logical sense, but sadly has become a handy excuse for the church to continue ignoring its participation in communal sins of exploitation and oppression or even ignorance. For if God is blessing a church (growing numbers), then why should they change or examine who they really are? Why bother asking what it means to sacrificially follow Christ when everything is going so well?

At the church I attend we have entered into an intense period of discernment as a community. Part of why we are doing so is because the numbers aren’t there, we’re hurting. I think it could be easy to see this struggle as a lack of blessing, or at least to say that we are in need of more of God’s blessing (not that I’ve actually heard this being said). But what I’ve been reflecting on during this time is that perhaps this is an opportunity to help us realize that any blessing we have exists for the sole purpose of us by extension blessing others. It has been providing us a chance to really examine who we are – which I do hope will lead to a response of sacrificial living. I don’t want us to have confidence in our own community for the sake of itself alone, for sometimes even in the midst of struggles it can be easy to do so, just like Jerusalem saying “shalom, shalom” with certainty as empire breathed down their necks. It can unfortunately be just as easy for the struggling as well as the numerically “blessed” church to turn inward and start existing only for acquiring “blessings” for themselves.

The nation of Israel was told that they were blessed to be a blessing to the nations. This wasn’t some warm fuzzy perk – this was a task that required sacrifice, generosity, and ongoing humility. Existing for the sake of others is hard work. Ensuring that the people around us are finding justice, not being oppressed, and being showered with the blessing of God is a lot harder than getting a few more butts in the pews or dollars in the plate. Giving up perceived blessing when that blessing feeds a system of injustice is even harder, but it is only in such actions that the true path to blessing can be found.

So I appreciated Bruegemann’s reminder that blessing can be a tricky thing. It is easy to think we are blessed and miss the point entirely by failing to be actively serving others and seeking justice for all. But we can also easily desire blessing for ourselves without realizing that that is not how God works at all. A church should never exist for the sake of itself, no matter how great of a community it might be. The body of Christ is called to bear witness, to be that communal voice answering the call of Christ – seeking justice for all. Blessing can only be used to bless – to be the healers of this world. Just as saying “shalom” does not bring peace, simply saying “we are blessed” (in praise or supplication) does not make it so unless there is the evidence of a simultaneous blessing of others.

For full disclosure, I haven’t fully read Hipster Christianity yet – just extended excerpts (thank you Amazon "look inside"), summaries and reviews and articles and blog posts McCracken has written. I don’t know McCracken, but I do have to say that discovering recently on his blog that he was a fellow Wheaton College grad who lived in Traber dorm (a stereotype that only fellow Wheaties will understand) helped clarify his cultural influences for me as well as explain his obsession with C.S. Lewis (who at Wheaton was referred to as St. Jack or “the fourth member of the Trinity). But I did take his “are you a Christian hipster?” quiz, which of course told me I was a hipster. From what I could tell anyone who isn’t fundamentalist or Amish and has a pulse in the 21st century would be labeled “hipster” according to the quiz – including McCracken himself who seems far cooler than I will ever be. As I’ve mentioned numerous times before, I am the definition of uncool. I have no sense of style, I don’t know how to do my hair, I don’t listen to music, I am not artistic, I’m a freaking stay-at-home (mostly) mom for crying out loud. But apparently (according to McCracken) since I read non-male/white/Western theologians, think the church should discuss something as important as sex, attend a church that meets in a warehouse and uses candles, like Stephen Colbert and Lady Gaga, believe we can learn truth from literature and film (I got the same Wheaton College English degree as McCracken after all), desire to steward God’s creation, and think oppression, human trafficking, and modern day slavery are wrong I am a self-centered hipster and therefore in danger of compromising my faith for the sake of being cool.

And so once again I state, “Seriously? You’ve got to be kidding, right?” The logic there is so horrible I don’t even know where to begin. I’m struggling to tell if he is just another one of those Christians who lashes out at anyone who has a different faith journey than him (and I’m sure he would poke fun of me using the term “faith journey”), or if he is truly ignorant of how deeply rooted in faith much of the stuff he criticizes actually is (or if this is a disguised theological attack that chooses not to use theology). I just don't know. I don’t deny that the people he describes exist, or that there are people who desperately just try to be cool. But why he feels this obsessive need to label and therefore dismiss entire sections of the church who are simply trying to faithfully follow Jesus is beyond me.

Why is the conversion of the girl who had her perspective changed by the art history prof in college who now creates non-Thomas Kinkade Christian art as part of worship more suspect as being inauthentic or not truly Christian than the drug dealer who read a Chick-tract and now works in a soup kitchen? Is God not working for transformation in her life too? Or why is believing that Kwok Pui-lan, or Musa Dube, or Richard Twiss, or Gustavo Gutierrez might have something to teach us any different than believing we can learn from C.S. Lewis, or Francis Schaeffer, or Dietrich Bonhoeffer? Or why is the guy who wears thrift store or fairly made clothes more in danger of having caring too much about his appearance interfere with his spirituality than the youth pastor who spends hours describing to his group (in great detail) the exact sorts of bathing suits or the exact width of shoulder straps the pretty young high school girls are allowed to wear during summer camp? Or for that matter than the middle-aged women who have self-appointed themselves the modesty police or even Richard Foster who devotes a large section of Celebration of Discipline to the clothes Christians should wear? Why is it okay for their ideas about appearance to be faith-based and biblically-sound, but not the so-called hipster’s? Why are emerging forms of spirituality automatically suspect as being more culturally influenced and therefore harmful to Christianity than those that emerged twenty or thirty years ago?

I know I am not a creature independent of my culture. No one is. Anyone who claims otherwise needs some serious re-education. But to claim that we so-called hipster Christians are the way we are simply because we are self-centered "all about me" folks who are trying to be cool and relevant utterly misses the point. I attend a church of broken misfits who are desperately trying to live faithfully. I don’t attend my church because we are so cool that we meet in a warehouse and sit on couches, I attend it for the community that has formed around each other in that particular environment. Sure the environment influences who we are, but it isn’t the sum of who we are – just like gathering by a river or in the catacombs or sitting in pews or a cathedral influences but doesn’t not ultimately define other churches. I don’t read postcolonial voices because that makes me relevant; I read them because I believe the body of Christ cannot survive without all its parts. I don’t buy fair trade because it’s trendy; I buy it because the Bible tells me to care for the poor and to not cheat a worker of his wages. I don’t fight human trafficking because it makes me feel good, I do it because it is wrong that six year old girls are kidnapped and forced into prostitution where they are repeatedly raped by men who have a sick and twisted view of women and sex (two topics that churches apparently should avoid discussing because they are just trendy shock-gimmicks). (And by the way, when we’ve reached the point in the conversation where people are questioning opposing the enslaving of children as sex toys because it might be too trendy and relevant of a topic then I’m done with that conversation – God is nowhere in it).

I am a cultural creation, I freely admit that. But don’t for one minute project your disapproval of my culture trappings onto me and assume that I have uncritically allowed such things to put the “realness” of my faith in peril. If you want to criticize such things or suggest another type of popular culture that you think is more appropriate for Christians to embrace (cuz, we all embrace something) then do that. Let’s disagree, but for the sake of respectful and truthful dialogue please don’t naively dismiss my lived faith as merely an attempt to be cool when nothing could be further from the truth.

While the topic of truth gets a lot of air-time these days, few actually take the time to define what they are talking about or move beyond critiquing the "other side." Franke though stays true to an evangelical affirmation of truth while at the same time thoughtfully engaging with the reality of pluralism. His nuanced approach to the discussion doesn't rubber-stamp any extreme, but admits the complexity associated with faith and truth. And for that, I found his work to be refreshing. He admits upfront that "the expression of biblical and orthodox Christian faith is inherently and irreducibly pluralist" (7). But this isn't an in-your-face assertion that must be swallowed whole; it is instead the idea that the whole book seeks to unpack and explore. With a faithful commitment to scripture and a tender compassion for the reader, Franke demonstrates how pluralism is not something to be feared or fought but is instead simply a beautiful intrinsic aspect of not just our faith but all creation.

I appreciated how Franke in his discussion of truth quickly moved beyond the absolute and relative dichotomies. Neither accurately represents truth as the first tries to commoditize it for the sake of power and the second deny it in the name of tolerance. Pluralism and truth are far more complex than the extreme camps allow us to admit. Our world is diverse, as is our faith. And Franke rightly points out that culture and our faith is always changing, God never leaves us where we are at, but is constantly transforming us with the gospel. The constant renewing of our minds allows us to faithfully claim traditions in the church as well as celebrate the new things God is doing. The celebration of plurality affirms the "importance of multiple perspectives in the apprehension and communication of truth" (40). Just as The Father, Son, and Spirit are one even as they are different, the church can be one while living fully into our own diversity.

I also was grateful for Franke's assertion that we can never let our particular cultural setting trump our commitment to truth. We are situated in culture, but when we start to assume that our cultural habits are the only way to present truth, we are in fact limiting God and truth. Scripture and God cannot be subject to cultural assumptions, but must be celebrated in their plurality. Similarly, we should remember that God doesn't seek to assimilate the Other and make us all the same either. Franke brilliantly reminds us that we can be silencing God when we do not listen to voices that might not fit our accepted cultural theological norms. He writes, "theology is not a universal language. It is situated language that reflects the goals, aspirations, and beliefs of a particular people, a particular community" (94). If we are to affirm the plurality that God affirms, we must thoughtfully seek out the diversity of theological voices. This was a poignant wake-up call for me as I too often only listen to the voices of those similar to me. I need to be striving to affirm God by affirming the truth of the many legitimate enculturations of the faith.

Manifold Witness is accessible, but it is also challenging. Franke goes places that others have avoided – not for the sake of controversy, but out of a deep desire to be faithful. His commitment to loving and serving God is apparent on every page of this book making his exploration of the plural nature of truth a gift to the Christian community. I highly recommend this book not just for those caught up in the discussion of truth, but to all Christians eager to celebrate our expansive God in the full diversity of his church.

2009 Books -

Non-fiction

• The Boundary-Breaking God by Danielle Shroyer
• We Get to Carry Each Other: The Gospel According to U2 by Greg Garrett
• Manifold Witness by John Franke
• Sacred Friendships by Robert Kellemen and Susan Ellis
• Jesus Christ for Today's World by Jurgen Moltmann
• Last Child in the Woods By Richard Louv
• Cuisines of the Axis of Evil and Other Irritating States By Chris Fair
• Cosmopolitanism : Ethics in a World of Strangers by Kwame Anthony Appiah
• A Story of Rhythm and Grace by Jimi Calhoun
• Enough by Will Samson
• The Next Evangelicalism by Soong-Chan Rah
• Mama's Got a Fake I.D. by Caryn Dahlstrand Rivadeneira
• Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson
• Sacred Encounters by Tamara Park
• Eve's Bible by Sarah S. Forth

Fiction

• The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate by Jacqueline Kelly
• Naamah's Kiss by Jacqueline Carey
• Santa Olivia by Jacqueline Carey
• Rhapsody: Child of Blood by Elizabeth Haydon
• Prophecy: Child of Blood by Elizabeth Haydon
• Destiny: Child of Sky by Elizabeth Haydon
• Requim for the Sun by Elizabeth Haydon
• Elegy for a Lost Star by Elizabeth Haydon
• The Shadow Queen by Anne Bishop
• Fortune and Fate by Sharon Shinn
• Heir to Sevenwaters by Juliet Marillier

While there are a few books on this list that I would classify in the almost to painful to read category, for the most part I enjoyed this years books. For sheer entertainment in a satirical intellectual sort of way, I would list Cuisines of the Axis of Evil as a favorite. As for books that I've recommended the most and mentally returned to most often I would list Mama's Got a Fake ID and Manifold Witness. I seriously hope to expand my reading this next year – especially by reading non-majority (not white, western, or male) theological works (any recommendations would be appreciated).

So what about you – what were your favorite reads of 2009?

in the book, author Chris Fair takes a close look at the evil powerhouses in the world (i.e. those countries with the bomb or those who are trying to get it) and humanizes them with an exploration of their cuisine. From the so-called "axis of evil" (Iraq, Iran, North Korea), to nuke-possessing human-rights violators (Israel, India, and Pakistan), to the dashers of democracy (Cuba, Burma, and China), to the Great Satan herself (USA), the reader embarks on a rather peculiar world tour. Fair is unashamedly biased and opinionated, and yet manages to present a balanced perspective on many of these countries. What is extremely helpful is her brief modern histories of each country. Basically she explains why these countries hate the USA and what our past relationship with them has been. So for all of us 30-somethings who were too young to watch the news while, say, the Iran-Contra affair was unraveling, and whose history textbooks and teachers never made it past World War 2 (because what teacher wants to touch Civil Rights and the Vietnam War), these brief histories are the most concise explanations of these events you will have ever heard. One reads of the whole convoluted history of our relationship with Saddam Hussein, how the Taliban got its weapons, and why we let China walk all over us. The author doesn't hold back – all the countries are equally criticised and celebrated at the same time. It truly is a dinner party approach where friendship has to guide all other conversations.

And I know this sounds bad, but my biggest issue with the book was in it's treatment of the USA. Now, I have no problem pointing out our flaws. We are hardly ones to point the finger at other "evil" nations when we were the ones who funded their armies and set-up their regimes to begin with. America is far from perfect. And I appreciated the author setting the record straight that the Muslim world doesn't hate us for our freedom, they hate us for being a bully. But in exploring other reasons why the world hates America, I think the author let her personal opinions influence her focus a bit too much. She argues that the world hates us because a majority of us are so stupid we don't believe in evolution or at least think God might have been involved. Whatever her opinion on that issue, I highly doubt that most of the world hates us because we believe in God. If she thinks we are idiots, fine, but the argument went a bit too far in that particular case.

But in general, this provocative and satiric take on world politics was pure brilliance, and the featured cuisines were enticing. The author not only describes typical meals in each of the countries – complete with drinks and ambiance, she provides detailed recipes for a full-course dinner party. Since reading the book, I've tried a couple of the recipes (and can highly recommend the Margat Bamya stew from the Iraq chapter). They are easy to follow and she takes care to tell you exactly what should be happening with the food at each step and where you can go to find the more exotic ingredients listed. On the whole, I can only say that I wish all approaches to international relations were this entertaining and yummy.